Swimmers shatter four Games records

Ranchi: Swimmers smashed four meet records
as Richa Mishra added two more gold medals on day two of the
competition at the 34th National Games here today.

Sandeep Sejwal, A P Gagan, Richa and Karnataka`s 4x100m
men`s relay team set the four meet records as Karnataka and
Delhi picked two gold and two silver each.

The day at the Veer Budhu Bhagat Aquatic Stadium in Mega
Sports Complex here belonged to 27-year-old Delhi girl Richa
who bagged two more gold from as many events to make it four
in her total kitty.

Competing in all the 17 individual events, Richa had a
confident start in the day when she led all the way to clinch
the 800m freestyle with a record timing of 09.24:45s thus
shattering the previous Games record held by Surabhi Tipre
(09.25:30).

Richa swam 02.49:58 in 200m breaststroke en route to her
second gold, while Poorva Shetye of Maharashtra (02.52:31) and
Tamil Nadu`s A V Jayaveena (02.53:09) took the silver and
bronze respectively.

The Delhi girl was challenged by Poorva but she
maintained her lead in both the laps for her fourth gold.

Representing Madhya Pradesh, international swimmer Sejwal
shattered the Games record by a big margin in the 200m
breaststroke.

Sejwal clocked 02.17:53 to better his previous record of
02.26:80.

Puneet Rana of Haryana clinched the silver with a timing
of 02.24:42 that itself was better than the previous meet
record. Punjab clinched a bronze courtesy Jashandeep Singh
with a timing of 02.28:28.

Promising Karnataka youngster Gagan stunned national
record holder Mandar Divase with a superlative performance in
the first event of the day when the 19-year-old showed
tremendous grit and determination to claim the 1500m freestyle
gold with a record timing.

Gagan clocked 16.15:54 en route to the gold medal,
bettering the four-year-old record in the name of Rohit
Havaldar (16.24:54). Divase of Maharashtra (16.41:07) and
Delhi`s Merwyn Chen (16.50:24) settled for silver and bronze
respectively.

Himanshu Tiwari of Uttar Pradesh won high board diving
with 260.85 points while Keshav Shinde of Maharashtra (252.45)
and Services` Kartik Shaw (235.90) settled for silver and
bronze respectively.

Karnataka quartet of Ashwin Menon, Aditya Roshan, Arjun
JP and Rohit Havaldar set the fourth record of the day when
they clocked 04.02:21 en route to gold in 4x100m medley relay.
Services (04.05:25) and Maharashtra (04.10:83) bagged the
silver and bronze respectively.